Growing a company requires you to grow your team. High demands need extra hands, especially when there is a lot of pressure to keep up the standards your clients expect.

Somewhat ironically though, recruitment as an industry has surprisingly high churn rates, meaning a large percentage of staff leave within the first 12 months. This, naturally, has an effect on your business, your reputation, and your bottom line.

Today we’re going to explain how to retain your staff and what you can do to entice the best talent.

 

The Risks of ‘Growth at all Costs’

Growth is the most important thing for a business owner. In the case of temporary recruitment, growth usually means more clients, and a database packed with talented applicants that you can provide for them. Recruitment is a competitive industry, so growth is a sign that you’re doing your job well and are being rewarded for it.

However, if you aren’t scaling your team, the pressure mounts on your permanent staff. There are only so many hours in the day, and if they’re stretched thin, the quality of work will suffer, and burnout will be a risk.

If you’re too focused on growth, you might not see the wood for the trees. If your existing clients aren’t happy with the service, or your team are trying to make their voices heard and failing, they’ll have no choice but to leave. This will reduce growth, and when you finally notice, recovering will be tough.

 

High Staff Turnover in Recruitment

Working in temporary recruitment is very lucrative, but many recruitment companies, even those that are highly rated, are stressful environments. The job is tough, and new staff are expected to perform from day one. There are also a lot of CRMs and software to get used to; previous experience does not guarantee an easy start to a new position.

Because recruitment is so competitive, there are a lot of companies out there all hiring new people. If your staff feel underappreciated, or there are better benefits at a rival business, they will be tempted away. Business owners know this and are always trying to entice the best staff away from their peers, if they see a weakness they can exploit, they will.

High staff turnover has a domino effect too. The more people leave within their first year, the harder it will be to reinforce your core team properly.

Hiring new staff is a costly and time-consuming process. By the time you’ve posted a job listing, filtered through applications, and organised interviews, you could be weeks or even months without the staff you need. As a recruitment expert yourself, you know this is a tough challenge, which makes it even more difficult if you’re going through it yourself, and this knowledge isn’t always an advantage.

Thankfully, there are a few things you can incorporate into your business to encourage staff to stick around.

 

Onboarding New Staff Properly

It starts with good on-boarding. Even if minimal training is needed, you should still take the time to help your new team members feel comfortable so they can better integrate into the work family.

New hires need to be able to assess their performance and improve where necessary, so you should give them regular, honest feedback and appraisals. Keep criticism constructive and it’ll make all the difference.

Make sure they’re given clear objectives too – after all, how can you do well in a role if you don’t know what you’re working towards? Having a clear aim will make sure employees can measure how well they’re doing and enjoy their role more, too.

The culture within your business is equally important. Making it helpful and co-operative, with a team ethos, is vital to help new people ask questions and learn to improve. If they can’t do that for fear of failure, they’re more likely to not bother asking for help and start looking elsewhere.

 

Offer Competitive Benefits

If you find that few people are interested in joining your team, it’s time to assess the packages you’re offering them. A competitive salary isn’t always enough, people want to join a company that offers things like hybrid or remote working, a company car, or even a cycle to work scheme that shows you care about your environmental impact.

Make sure you emphasize what makes your company unique on job listings too. If you engage in a lot of team-building activities or weekends away, make sure they’re front and centre.

Take a look at your closest rivals and see what they are offering as they may only be offering a slightly better deal that you can at least match.

 

Finding the Right New Hires in the First Place

No matter what you do, some new hires just aren’t right for the job. They may have a sparkling CV and excelled in interviews, but you don’t know for sure until they arrive.

As you no doubt tell your own clients, finding the right people is key. But you might not practice what you preach and are too quick to settle for someone that isn’t a perfect fit. Take that extra month or request that additional interview, it’s always worth it.

That’s why it’s so important to assess candidates you’re thinking of recruiting and using the insights you get to tailor both the on-boarding process and future motivational strategies.

Again, you’d expect candidates you put forward to be offered a career progression plan – so make sure your own staff have one too. It doesn’t necessarily mean changing jobs or titles (some recruiters want to move into management, while others just want to carry on doing what they love); but providing new challenges and goals within the company is important, and means people are less likely to move on.

 

Keeping Staff Satisfied

Much of the above is, of course, simply common sense; in the most part it’s what recruiters expect of their own clients and forms the basis of best practice in hiring new talent.

But all too often over the years we’ve seen recruiters ‘forget’ what they should be doing when they hire their own staff – resulting in having to spend more time trying to replace people and, ultimately, restricting their business’s growth.

One final way you can reduce the pressure on your new staff is by working with us. Our service takes away the admin hassle, so you can focus more on growth, and helping your new staff members to get up to speed. It includes:

If you’re looking to streamline your processes, please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we look forward to hearing from you.